The plant is being built with German technology and can handle waste of all types regardless of whether they are segregated or not. Such plants are in operation in Germany, Sweden, Austria, France and other European countries.

Elcita, a statutory entity with municipal authority and taxation powers, has undertaken an extensive study to map the profile of the waste to design the plant in such a way as to get desired outputs. Elcita estimates the project to cost about Rs 40 crore, which it plans to fund through the corporate social responsibility contributions and taxes.

The government has allotted a six-acre plot to build the plant. "We will get the plot in about a month's time, and it will take us about a year's time to build the plant," said Kiron Shah, Chairman of Elcita. "We also want to showcase through this project how to build and run a state-of-the-art plant to deal with municipal waste," he said.

The Elcita has 280 member companies and 10 of them including Infosys, Wipro, HP and the Velankani group, have their own waste treatment plants with zero waste to landfill policy. It has included the gram panchayats in its scheme as a corporate responsibility gesture. The beneficiary panchayats are: Hebbagodi, Konappana Agrahara, Doddathoguru and Hulimangala.

The plant is being designed for a population of 3-lakh people based on a detailed waste characterisation study. Elcita has undertaken the study with the help of Institute for Sanitary Engineering and Waste Management, Leibniz Universitat Hannover, Germany. The university has come out with a unique engineering design to produce output like compost, recyclables like paper, plastic, metal and glass, and fuel for cement industries.

"The plant will be a state-of-the-art one because sorting out mixed waste will be extremely efficient with absolutely no odour or emission coming out of the plant," said Ramadas Kamath, a nominated member at Elcita and executive vice-president at Infosys.

"The plant will not leave any waste outside the scope of Elcita for processing," he added. "No country in the world has achieved total segregation," according to Vishwas Vidyaranya, project lead for solid waste management at Elcita.

"While segregation at source is important for efficient waste management, handling the unsegregated part is also equally essential". Vidyaranya is also a researcher at the above-mentioned institute in Germany.